A story in Evenimentul Zilei caught our eye this morning: Romania’s much-maligned (and rightly so) Ministry of Tourism is launching a campaign called ‘Schi in Romania’ (no translation required) and is splashing the cash on improving several of Romania’s tiny little one-lift ski resorts. The largest slice of the cake will go to Petrosani, the once-infamous mining town and now would-be ski resort. Although the total amount being spent is a fair sum (enough to build one very good ski resort) the fact that it is being spread so thin means that the overall effect will be minimal.
Skiing in Romania has never been a particularly pleasant experience. The only resorts of any note, Poiana Brasov and Sinaia, are lousy affairs with very limited skiing and poor snow records. The idea of trying to create a world-class ski resort at Petrosani (altitude 610 metres) is nonsensical: a lack of snow will be a perennial problem.
If Romania does want a genuinely brilliant ski resort then it needs to be at high altitude, where snow is guaranteed. Such a place exists: Balea Lac.
The old cable car at Balea Lac. Not about to joined anytime soon by a vast network of modern ski lifts.
There is skiing there now of course, but not of the groomed-piste variety foreign tourists want. But there could be, very easily. Located above the tree line there is no need to fell a single tree (so even the greenies will be kept happy) in order to put in gondolas and chair lifts (which do not close because of high winds as often as cable cars), and the location is close enough to Sibiu airport to be attractive to foreign charters.
You would need to build hotels of course, and improve the access road, but if you have €180 million to spend these things can be done. And the resort would have one of the longest seasons in Europe: you could still be shipping in skiers at the end of April, beginning of May.
Alas such a grandiose project will never happen, not with state money anyway. Instead a little here and a little there will go to each of the 20, 30 little ski resorts (which, many possessing just a single drag lift, barely warrant the name) around the country in order to placate political interests.
If a mega-sized, purpose-built ski resort a la Alpe d’Huez, La Plagne, Les Arcs etc. is ever built in Balea Lac it will be private enterprise that has to put the money up.
If we had the money we would.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh… Thanks for this article. I never seen better blog.
I need information about Adrian Patrascu, he was the best lawyer romanian had and about Paula Patrascu ,his wife , Claudiu Patrascu and Razvan Patrascu
Thank you very much,
dana
How rude
How did we get on to Nicolae Guta? This post was about building ski resorts
Yes, but the forum is self-regulating like the markets
)
Parmalat,
I had some fun google imaging those top fitze guys you mentioned. Correct me if I am wrong, but it would seem that a lot of the fitze crowd, although they may have money, are not well educated? To me, they look very insecure as people. I mean if you are an interesting person and have a Masters or Ph.D degree you probably are not just interested in driving around in a fast car and going to cafes all day. You probably actually DO something with your life. Sure it’s nice to have a nice car but it’s just a car! In Romania people seem to be obsessed with cars like I have never seen! My father has a Porsche and a Toyoto Landcruiser and my mom drives a SAAB 9-3 Turbo but it’s not as if this means anything to me. I don’t feel special when I drive them, they are inanimate objects.
Yes, they really are obsessed with cars! They would spend everything out of their pocket only to have a car which oftenly can’t afford to repair or even to put gas in them!
Many nice cars bought second-hand from the west in a generally good shape look like carriages that have been driven on country roads because people can’t afford to repair them properly.
Craig,
I am really sorry but Bucharest does not give up its secrets so easily to a foreigner and I have so many questions!!!
And another question: do members of the fitze crowd and pitzipoancas know these terms?! I mean are they aware that educated Romanians and foreigners think they are funny? I mean no one wants to be laughed at, but I sort of feel sorry for the fitze people because it seems as if they don’t even know how stupid they are being.
Actually the fitze crowd think of themselves as living in the centre of the world, and sometimes for a good reason I would say. Everyone pays attention to the fitze crowd, there are newspapers specialized in the fitze crowd and they are read by a million people each day so if a million people see that the fitze crowd with lots of money go to Bamboo, a trend emerges and they all want to go to Bamboo only to be in the same place with the others, place which they consider as being the centre of the world for a few hours. So they all become fitze crowd.
The fitze crowd don’t give 2$ on the rest of the world, they know damn well that other people consider them odd to say the least, but they think of the other people as being backward or “wannabes”, meaning jealous.
You don’t mess with the fitze crowd, they are organized: their “uniforms” are made on the same principle (girls dress as undressed as possible), their hanging out places are unanimously recognized and they are regular clients of those places, their thoughts are mainly the same (money + car + boy/girl) etc…
While the rest of us, we’re deeply disorganized: we go to various places, whenever we can or whenever we feel like it, we dress normally and adapted to the situation, we enjoy a whole range of things and situations and maintain a variety of ideas in our minds.
You see, very bad for us, we can’t win the war…
Oh and there’s also a manele crowd, which is the opposite of fitze (Bamboo) crowd. I don’t think foreigners know many things about it, this is for the initiated only…
i prefer the manele crowd. what is rge name of the great road where the maneles eat? i always loved it
You mean Hanul Drumetului in Drumul Taberei? That’s the most important manele place in town
I prefer the manele crowd too, more serious and mature people than the fitze crowd.
Are you Romanian?
nope
You mean the ‘Nicolae Guta’ crowd, right?! I am familiar with the music as everyone in the countryside listens to it. Broadly speaking, the crowd is full of working class people living in the Communist Blocs, correct?
Yes, the “Nicolae Guta” crowd
)
But like the fitze crowd, there are road-openers and simple fans: for example Claudiu Patrascu, Alexandru Erbasu, Codin Maticiuc, Costelus Casuneanu and others are the road openers for the fitze crowd, meaning that their parents made tens of millions of $ at least from business with the state (usually real-estate and construction) and they are present each evening at Bamboo at the best tables and spending 5000$ / evening from their parents’ money. If you take the Cancan newspaper which specializes in the fitze crowd, it’s absolutely impossible to see an issue without having an article about the above-mentioned persons. The rest of the fitze crowd are simple fans and admirers and they do whatever they can in order to copy the guys mentioned above. Same thing with the girls because the guys from above have a group of girls which they exchange between them etc… Coincidently or not, all those girls are related to the showbiz industry: singers, tv stars, fashion models and the rest of the fitze girls would like to copy them.
On the other hand, in the manele crowd road openers were the gypsies that made lots of money from combinations, for example: Nutu Camataru and his brother Sile Camataru who are now in jail (camatar = loan shark), Fane Spoitoru (an important underworld boss back in the 90′s, went to jail, was released but never got back to his previous status, still he was a road-opener for the manele crowd), Ion Clamparu (together with his nephews used to take whores to the west; a joint police operation in several countries took down their group but they were released by the court in Romania and now they are hiding God knows where, being wanted by the Interpol) etc…
After them, smaller mafiosos, crooks and people with combinations both home and abroad appeared (aka “smecheri”) and now they are the centre of attention of the manele crowd. They usually know each other and they respect each others’ status and combinations. They go to manele weddings and parties and they get to be introduced so in every moment in their world there’s someone to confirm their status to other people who don’t know so a general equilibrum exists between them on the basis of respect for the underworld status. They drive top of the range series cars (S-Klasse Mercedes, 7th Series BMW, X5 and X6 BMW) but they don’t go beyond that like the fitze crowd do (the fitze crowd drives Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls Royce, even Bugatti) even though they have enough money to buy whatever they want, they wear gold and dress in original brand-name clothes.
And the rest of the manele crowd are fans and admirers of the above guys and they try to copy them as much as they can: cars ranging from old second-hand Mercedes to old Dacia (not that important, what’s important is to have manele on board), fake brand-name clothes, gold (real, for the ones who can afford, otherwise no gold), adapted vocabulary and practices etc…
Yes, there are also people who listen to manele just because they like the songs as there are people who listen to dance music or trance or whatever they play in Bamboo just because of the music, having nothing to do with the crowd.
I don’t know if you understand Romanian very well, but you’d probably be stunned by the rhymes that some of the manele have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcto0Wz45vs
The underworld of Craiova: Caiac, Cimino, Gigioc and Rosianu. Caiac died this year, he was shot after a game of poker I think.
Or this one by Adrian Minune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq82EqosHVs
One of the dedications is for the World Champion of boxing, Lucian Bute
)
@Craig: you took out the link to pitzipoanca.org
Yes, but it is defined in the current Bucharest In Your Pocket!
I wish there was a separate forum on here in which to ask questions publicly like I always do, but again I am wondering about the eye contact that Romanian women constantly make with you on the street and in cafes?! I have traveled all over Europe and it is not like this in other places, I mean it is starting to get bizarre for me. I just wish I knew what they all were thinking. I walked up Str. Smardan this evening and at each cafe the girls were locked on me. I started thinking “is my fly down or something on my pants?!” It wasn’t. I only wish I got this kind of attention in my home country! Is it just the basics here, I mean are most Romanians wanting so much to become wealthy that these girls are just eyeing a foreigner like me for cash?
Also, why do all Romanians fear cameras and my picture taking? I can sort of understand this in the older generation due to Communism, but why do young people who were kids or not even born during Communism also get so agitated when they see my take pictures on the street? Does it have to do with them thinking that anyone taking pictures in Romania is probably making them to show how bad or poor it is? I mean why are people here so self-conscious? Is it an insecurity they have with their country and its reputation? Is it an insecurity with themselves? Can anyone illuminate what generally must be going on here?
Wooow, it means you look good, they like you! And I think your hair is blond, there are not too many blond and good looking guys in Romania! Really, I think you can pick up any of those girls with 2 words!
Have you ever tried talking to one of them? They see that you are a foreigner but if you were some ordinary foreigner they wouldn’t be watching you so insistently, definetly they like you, not necessarily for cash!
Next time when you see such a girl and she’s not with her boyfriend or so you can just approach her and ask her something in English to see how she reacts, I bet a day of my life that you’re gonna be friends in no time!
People are afraid of cameras like an instinct because they don’t know where their picture may appear. I mean – if you take someone’s picture you may place anywhere, like on the internet or so and you may comment anything on that picture and regular people are usually afraid of unknown circumstances, they prefer to maintain their privacy. And there are also people who live on the edge of the law (for example if you tried to take a photo of a 6 Series mafioso or even of his car) and you don’t know what combinations they may do so maintaining privacy is a must for them.
For example there are people who go to Turkey and buy cheap golden jewellery, enter the country without paying taxes and sell the jewellery here at a much cheaper price than in the stores. Such people don’t want to be photographed at all, and this is only an example because there may be other people who sell stolen cars and many many other combinations that the Romanians do home and abroad.
No, it’s not good to take pictures of people on the street in Romania, you don’t know who you can photograph, what combinations he has, what people he knows and doesn’t want other people to see etc… it’s better to maintain discretion unless you want to hear something like “what the f*** are you looking at?!”.
Very helpful Parmalat, thank you. Of course I shoot a great many street photos every day often at close range because I am a street photographer. In the professional photography world there is little street photography from Bucharest and so it is interesting for me I think to document the current state of the city 20 years after the fall of Communism. I am working with a digital Leica camera which is quite small and things are going fine although sometimes I am amazed at the sort of ability Romanians have to sense me from afar even when I have yet to take a picture!
Skiing is somewhat kitschy, people in Romania began to ski after 2003 or so when the economy was growing and they had more money. Before that nobody knew anything about skiing, the only entertainment that they had was watching tv
)
So skiing appeared at the same time with pitzipoancas, fitze clubs and terraces etc…
Simon:
I guess we are all talking about alpine skiing here and not nordic, but how does skiing damage the environment and why is it so elitist in your view? The diesel engine running the lift, the clearing of land for trails? The cost of the equipment and lift tickets? Many things in the world do a lot more damage to it than alpine skiing.
You do not have to cut down trees to cause devastating environmental impact. Skiing and the vile people who partake in this elitist sport are among the worst of all climate criminals. That skiing and skiers will become a thing of the past as the climate reaches critical point is yet another ironic twist in the climate change tale.
Eh? What’s wrong with skiing? What’s the point of saving the environment if we’re not allowed to derive any joy from it? Personally I plan to happily ski until the last polar bear drowns in a sea of melted icebergs
Right with you on that one Geronimo. But do not be surprised: enliarmentalist movement synonymous with killjoyism. (Is that a word?)